Lifelong Best Friends Forever
by poloxsaum
Summary: "No, I'm not going anywhere Jane, we're lifelong best friends forever." TW: self harm/suicide.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Okay, so just a random one shot, not connected to anything else I've written. __**TW: suicide and self-harm**__, so please don't read if you are sensitive to either of those subjects. I will try and write something a little happier sometime soon, but at the moment I've really been struggling with really bad urges to cut, so this is sort of what I'm channelling those thoughts into. Idk, it helps. I feel like this is really bad, it took me a while to put down on the page and I think it's a bit all over the place, but I'm really not myself at the moment so that's probably why, like my head doesn't feel like me and I haven't been sleeping so sorry. But anyway, leave me a review if you want more stuff like this, or if you would prefer something happier next time._

Jane stuffed a pillow over her head, trying to shut out the voices whirling through her mind. Of course it didn't work, it never did. She could never get them to stop, leave her alone, just give her some peace_. _

_Worthless. Disappointment. Let down. Horrible friend. Disgraceful sister. Everyone hates you._

All she wanted was to sleep peacefully for once. She was tired, run down and sleeping seemed like the perfect solution. But she would have to wake up, face everything all over again. She wanted to sleep, yes. But forever. She didn't want to have to see through another day. Trying to pretend it was okay, that she was okay.

Because everything was not okay. It hadn't been for a long time and now she was losing everyone she loved, pushing them away so they didn't see how… weak she was. Because she was weak. She was letting her mind take control, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Jane removed the pillow from over her face and sat up. It was late. She wasn't sure what time, she had removed the clock when she found herself watching the seconds ticking by one night. She had hoped it would help her sleep, not having a constant reminder that it was getting closer to her having to get up and face everyone. It hadn't, of course. And she hadn't bothered to get another one. She had decided it was a waste of time, a waste of effort, and she didn't really care that much whether she had one or not.

Jane stumbled out of bed, untangling her sweaty body from the bed sheets. Her breathing was erratic and her hands were shaking. She needed a drink. Just to calm herself down. Maybe that could make the nightmares stop. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time it didn't. But that never stopped her trying.

She grabbed a bottle of bear from the fridge, the cool bottle refreshing to her clammy hands. She tried to open it, cursing under her breath. She couldn't stop her hands shaking for long enough just so she could open the bottle. The anger built up in her and before she knew what she was doing she had smashed to bottle.

And then she was crying. Uncontrollably so. Sobs were tearing through her body and she couldn't catch her breath. Her body fell to the floor and she didn't even notice when she put her hand into the broken glass that lay on the floor.

She sat there for a while, she wasn't exactly sure for how long. Seconds, minutes, maybe hours passed. But that didn't stop the voices. And it didn't stop her from thinking.

_Everyone hates you. Everyone hates you. You're worthless._

They were right, she knew they were right. No one had even noticed anything was wrong. They didn't care enough to notice. They were all on some big inside joke. 'Let's see if Jane actually believes we like her'. 'Let's see how long it takes her to realise we hate her'. Because of course they hated her. It only made sense.

All through school she had no friends. No proper friends. Yes there were people she got on with, but they weren't her friends, she didn't trust them, she couldn't talk to them and the certainty weren't the sort of people you would invite over to your house. So why had that suddenly changed. She was an adult, but that didn't explain why people liked her, why they wanted to befriend her.

She imagined them all, laughing behind her back at how stupid she was being, amazed that she still thought they were her friend. All sat at the Robber, making jokes about her. She hated the thought, but she knew it was true and she couldn't change the truth, no matter how much she wanted to.

But she didn't, not really. Because that made sense. It made sense for people to do that to her, laugh at her, hate her. It didn't make any sense for people to be nice, she didn't understand it and she was perfectly fine being by herself. She just wished they had allowed her to do that without making her feel worthless about herself.

Her thoughts flickered to Maura. To the woman she loved. And it broke her heart, knowing that she hated her, that this was all a joke to her. That their friendship really meant nothing. But as she continued to think, maybe it was the other way around.

Maura wouldn't join in on something like that, she wouldn't actively hurt someone, because she had been the person with no friends. They were similar in that sense, they both knew what it felt like to feel completely alone. So it was Jane's fault. It was all her fault.

She had fucked up their friendship. Maura had meant everything to her, and by pushing her away, by allowing herself to think Maura hated her, she had shown Maura that their friendship was nothing. Maura had trusted her, she had been Maura's first proper friend and she had thrown it in her face. She had let her down so many times, it was any wonder that she still even talked to Jane. She had put Maura in danger, just be being her friend. She had ruined her life by starting a friendship with her.

_Maura would be better off without you._

And she knew it was true. Maura wouldn't be in danger ever again if she left. She wouldn't have to put up with all her shit. She could do her own thing without having to worry about Jane. And Jane could do that for her, she could make Maura's life better, she could make her happier. And that's what she wanted. Just for Maura to be happy, and she knew that wasn't going to happen while she was around.

She knew what she had to do. It was the clearest thing she had thought in a long while. She had finally thought of how she could make everything better. She didn't know why it had taken her so long, now she had realised it surprised her that she hadn't done so earlier. She was so selfish that she couldn't even think of how to make everyone else's lives less painful. No wonder they all hated her.

_You selfish bitch._

She stood up, still shaking, but less so and grabbed some paper and a pen. She needed to apologise to Maura first, tell her how sorry was that she had ruined her life, tell her how sorry she was that she had fucked everything up.

She wrote quickly, not even sure if she was making sense, but she didn't care. She was rambling, she knew it, but Maura would understand, somehow she always did. Her writing was messy, scrawled across the page and she couldn't really stop writing once she had started, everything she was sorry for, everything she had done wrong since she had known Maura.

Once she stopped, she was crying again. She hadn't realised what a horrible friend she was, and no after she had written it all down and apologised, she wondered how Maura didn't hate her more. She left it on the table, knowing that Maura would get it. Maybe when she came over one night later this week, maybe when someone delivered it to her when they found her.

Jane went to the bathroom and started running the bath. She never usually had a bath, instead showering as it was often quicker and easier so preferring it when she was shattered from work. As the water ran, Jane looked through the cupboard that was under the sink.

She kept some blades in there that she used sometimes. She used them mainly when things got really bad, it was the only think that really worked for her but she hated it. She hated scarring her own body, it was like a constant reminder of how much she had failed, how much of a let-down she was. She hated that it worked, but loved that something did. She was torn between making things feel better and having that permanent reminder of how bad things got. It didn't matter now. She didn't care now.

She found them, hidden in the back, just in case anyone went in there. She wasn't sure why anyone would be looking through the cupboard under her bathroom sink, but just in case.

She looked at herself in the mirror once she stood and noticed how much of a mess she was. She suddenly noticed how much weight she had lost, her cheek bones jutting out more than they used to, she had dark circles under her eyes, her eyes was even more a mess than usual as she hadn't washed it in a while. What was the point anyway?

She ran her hands over her face and turned away from the mirror, disgusted with herself. She stopped the bath water running and climbed in, not even bothering to take off her clothes. The water relaxed her slightly, and it surprised her. She had never experienced it before. Maura had told her previously that it might help her relax after a stressful case, but she had never given it a chance. Maybe she should of.

She took the blade and made several small cuts on her wrist, getting deeper each time. She watched the blood run down her arm and felt suddenly peaceful. She made some cuts on the other arm, deeper still and lay back.

She felt surprisingly peaceful, more so than in any other near-death experience she had been in. Perhaps it was because she was in control, she knew what was happening and she was the cause of this. She wasn't being hurt by another person, she wasn't in any danger, and she wanted this. That didn't scare her. if several years ago you had told Jane Rizzoli that one day she would be sat in her bath, bleeding from both of her wrists, ready to die, she would have thought you were joking, the mere idea of dying at her own hands, not while saving someone else, not doing the thing she loved most, would have scared her. She wouldn't have admitted it, but it would have scared her.

All through her life she had never understood how people were able to take their own lives, leave behind the people who loved them. But now she knew. They did it, she was doing it, to save them, because they deserved so much better. She had never been able to imagine the unbearable pain someone must be in to do that to themselves, to hurt themselves physically so it took the pain away. Now she knew. She hadn't been able to understand how someone could hid it away from the people they loved, how no one noticed that something was wrong. Now she did.

But that didn't scare her. She had always imagined herself to be scared in the face of death, it was what everyone thought, it was what people told you. But maybe that was just to stop you doing dangerous things, maybe they thought that you wouldn't doing reckless things if you knew how scared you would be. Because if she knew how much better this was than living, she was sure she would have done it long before now.

Jane could feel herself slipping away, but she didn't fight it, she welcomed it. This was the most relaxed she had been in a long time and it was nice, she had almost forgot what it was like to be this relaxed. Her eyes had flickered shut. She wasn't exactly sure when, but she wasn't even sure how long she had been led there, but she found that they were heavy when she tried to open them. So she gave up. She didn't need to open them, not really, she wasn't sure why she tried.

She felt herself slip away and then back again. Then there was knocking. She wasn't sure what it was, but she didn't really care. Someone was calling her name, but she wasn't sure whether it was from her life where she was sat in her bath or whether she had slipped unconscious and it was some weird dream she was having. It confused her, but she let it go, she hadn't experienced dying before so she wasn't exactly sure what to expect.

There was the banging again. Was it in her head? Why wouldn't it stop? It stopped. She felt herself slip away again and she was sure a smile graced her lips as she left.

And then she was on the floor. Why was she on the floor? What was going on? She opened her eyes and frowned. She was pretty sure that was her bathroom ceiling, why was she looking at her bathroom celling? Maybe it wasn't, maybe she was just confused.

But then she heard Maura. Or someone who sounded a lot like Maura, because it couldn't be Maura. Maura wasn't dead, she was. That wasn't fair, she didn't want to hear Maura. She closed her eyes again and Maura's voice stopped. Everything stopped.

This was it, everything was okay now. Everyone could be happy now, no more pretending, no more joking, no more laughing at her. It was okay now.

_A/N: Okay so yeah, crappy little thing. I feel this is literally just not even anything, but yeah, thanks for reading._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I'll put another TW in here for __**mentions of self-harm and suicide**__ although there are no actual mentions of it. But yeah, ta-daa!_

Maura sat in the hospital on a chair in the corridor. How had she not noticed something was wrong earlier, how had she been so oblivious to Jane's suffering. Maybe if she had have noticed something earlier, just asked her if she was really okay, she wouldn't be in this situation, she wouldn't have tried to kill herself.

Maura squeezed her eyes shut. _Jane had tried to kill herself._ That scared her, more than she knew it was possible to be scared. She had always assumed Jane would be in more danger because of her job, at the hands of some psychotic criminal, not due to her own mind taunting her. And she had done nothing. What kind of friend didn't notice this, didn't notice someone they cared about, loved, more than anyone, was struggling so much that they thought it would be better if they were dead.

Maura had read many articles on suicide, just like she had read many articles and papers on everything else that spiked some interest. She knew that it must be an indescribable pain felt, but she couldn't imagine it, couldn't get her head around how bad it must be. But she had read that when people realise that they can do that, end their own life, they're somewhat relieved. Because they don't have to live through that pain anymore, they don't have to suffer. Before she had read anything about it, she assumed that it was selfishness, taking your own life, leaving behind the people who loved you. But the more she read, the more discovered that it was. It was selflessness.

They took their own life because they thought the people the loved would be better off without them, that they could be happier without them around. And that really hurt Maura.

_Jane thought she would be better off without her here._

Didn't she know how much Maura loved Jane, how she had saved her, how much she had turned her life around. Could Jane nor see that she was the only person in Maura's life that really mattered to her. And then Maura realised she didn't. She didn't know that, she didn't see it like that. She genuinely thought Maura could be happier, better off, with her gone. Because Jane didn't see herself the way that everyone else saw her. And that broke Maura's heart. She didn't know, Jane didn't know how important she was to everyone around her, didn't know how amazing she was, how beautiful, how kind.

Maura knew that Jane always turned down every compliment she was given, didn't know quite what to say when someone said something nice about her, but Maura didn't realise it was because Jane didn't know it, didn't believe it. That didn't even seem like an explanation. She couldn't get her head around the idea that Jane really didn't know.

Maura stood when she saw the doctor walk down the corridor towards her. She wasn't sure if she was who was treating Jane, she hadn't taken much notice when they had arrived about who was who and what was happening, she just had kept focusing on Jane, worried that she would somehow loose the small piece of life still in her if she dared look away for a second, dared remove the tight grip she had on Jane's hand. And she hadn't, not until they had removed her from the room because she was getting in the way of them treating her.

She wasn't even exactly sure what was happening around her. She hadn't noticed the blood still seeping from her wrists, through the useless bandages they had placed over the cuts and onto the white sheets. She didn't notice the looks the doctors shared over Jane or the looks of others in the hospital. The worry the doctors shared about the outcome, the shock that families of patients held on the faces at the woman being transported through the ward, soaked through to the skin, and incredibly pale.

That's what Maura noticed; how pale Jane looked, not so much white as she was grey like she was already dead, like the people who came into the morgue every. As if there was no life left in her. She noticed how small Jane looked on the hospital bed, somehow shrinking into the sheets and Maura worried that if she looked away Jane would completely disappear into them. She noticed the pain that radiated through her features when her eyes opened momentarily. And she thought she saw a small smile play at Jane's lips when their eyes met. But what was there to be happy about, to smile about. Couldn't she tell how close to deaths door she was?

_That's what she wants._

The thought flickered into Maura's head, but she dismissed it just as quickly. However that didn't stop the feelings that came with it. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. The fear of what could have happened. The worry over how bad things had got for Jane. And the guilt.

She felt so guilty, for surely she could have stopped this, she could have, should have, noticed it and helped Jane. Done something, anything, to make sure that nothing like this could ever happen. But she stopped those thoughts, because they weren't going to get her anywhere, they weren't going to help Jane now. And that was what was important.

Maura had stayed with Jane as the doctors got to work on her, but she had seen that they weren't quite doing everything they could at the quickest rate possible. They weren't doing their job properly, they weren't saving her best friend. And then she got cross with them. But then the tears started and she just sounded like a blubbering mess as she tried to tell them what to. Like most other relatives they had in here.

And she had been in the way, refusing to stand back from the bed, let go of Jane's hand. Because what if something happened and she wasn't there. She had already let her down and look where that had got her. Someone had warned her, but unlike herself she hadn't paid any attention to them. So they had to remove her from the room completely. It was probably best for Jane, but she couldn't see it like that. She only worried about what could happen to Jane when she was out of her sight.

The doctor walked over to Maura, although Maura still didn't recognise her from anytime earlier. She started talking but Maura wasn't interested in anything until she knew if Jane was okay, they could talk about everything else afterwards. After she had seen Jane with her own eyes, after she had felt the pulse of her best friend with her own fingers, after she had made sure that she wasn't dead. So Maura cut her off.

"Please, please just tell me she's okay," Maura begged.

The doctor paused before nodding slowly. "She is alive, but I wouldn't say she's okay. She tried to take her own life and I really would like to keep her in the hospital on a ward where she can be watched at all times, but we've had Detective Rizzoli in here a far few amount of times, and it's safe to say that she isn't going to want that, and I can't force her to stay if she really doesn't want to. But she will need to be with someone. Someone who she trusts and who trusts her, I –."

Maura cut the doctor off again, just wanted to see Jane.

"She can stay with me once she's been discharged, but can I please just see her, I need to see her."

"You can go on through, she's in the room right at the end," the doctor told her.

"Thank you so much," Maura said before walking down the corridor to the room Jane was in.

She stopped outside the door, and realised she was holding her breathe. She wasn't sure she why she was so worried about this, so nervous about seeing Jane. She had no idea how Jane was going to react to seeing her after knowing how Maura had found her, and knowing that she hadn't succeeded in committing suicide. And that was, technically, Maura's fault. She didn't want Jane to hate her for saving her life.

She walked in and her eyes feel onto Jane's tiny body that lay still in the bed. Maura rushed to her side, her eyes automatically flicking up towards the monitors, just to check that everything was okay. She nodded to herself, accepting that Jane wasn't in any danger right at this moment.

Jane looked better than she had done earlier. They had changed her out of her own clothes that were soaked and she was in a hospital gown, and they had replaced a lot of the blood she had lost so she didn't appear as grey as it was earlier. Maura had been in this situation before. Waiting in a hospital for Jane to regain consciousness, worried, scared and half the time a complete mess. But she didn't mind, and she didn't blame or hate Jane for it, after all there where many times when Jane had told Maura she would probably be better off not being her friend. But Maura hadn't left her side and waiting in hospitals was just something that one got used to when friends with a detective who always managed to get themselves into danger.

However, all those times, Jane was in here at the fault or another person. The scars on her body, the wounds she had accumulated over the years were all from someone else, there was someone else who had been involved with putting Jane into the hospital. But now it was different. She was there, in that bed, because she had injured herself.

But there were certainly other people involved in the reasoning behind it and in not stopping her from doing it. And she was one of them. She was one of the main reasons Jane lay in that hospital bed. And all hat guilt she had pushed away earlier flooded back into her head, filling up her whole body and she couldn't seem to shift it.

_I am a horrible best friend_.

Her hands ran delicately over the bandages that covered the stiches on Jane's wrist, not wanting to cause her any more pain than she had already suffered. She felt the tears building up and before she knew it she was talking to Jane. She knew Jane wasn't awake to her hear what she was saying, but they did bring her some comfort and she knew that there was some level of proof that patients could hear what you were saying to them even when not conscious.

"I'm so sorry Jane, I'm so sorry that I didn't notice anything, that I couldn't help you, and that you've been struggling all this time by yourself. And I know that you might hate me for saving you, but I'm not going anywhere and I'm going to help you as much as I can because you deserve to be happy and not be scared or frightened. You don't deserve to have all those thoughts about how bad you are going through your head, about how much better we all would be without you here, because none of that is true. You're amazing, and wonderful and beautiful and kind and I don't know what I would do without you Jane.

"You're my best friend, and I'm not sure what I do without you around. I was so scared when I found you, I thought I'd lost you forever, and I'm not even sure where I would start with coping. I'm not sure I would. You're more important to people than you can imagine. And I know how hard it is for you to see that, but I promise that its true and I promise that I'll show you as best I can how much you mean to me an–."

Maura stopped when she felt Jane's hand move under her own and her eyes flickered up to her face. Jane's eyes opened and she blinked a couple of times and Maura couldn't help but smile. She had known Jane was alive, but seeing her conscious reinforced that fact, made her believe it instead of just knowing it.

She stood, not letting go of Jane's hand and smiled at Jane when their eyes found each other. But Jane didn't smile back, she just frowned, confused at where she was, at what was happening. Why was Maura here? Why was she lead down in bed? Had it not worked? Had she not even managed to kill herself right? Had she let down Maura again?

She felt the anger inside building, but it was nothing compared to the sorrow she felt and she started crying. Sobs ripping through her body. She had ruined the one thing that she thought could solve everything. She had made everything even worse for Maura. She could see in her eyes, and although she was smiling, she could tell that she wasn't really happy.

_She hates me even more._

"It's okay Jane," Maura said, her face falling as she witnessed the distress her friend was in.

Jane didn't say anything in reply and had turned her head away, almost as if she were hiding. Maura knew that Jane hated her for what she did. She couldn't just leave Jane, but she just wanted to make her happy, to save her, to get the old Jane back.

"Jane, I'm so sorry," Maura started but was startled when Jane whipped her head back around.

"Maura don't apologise, you haven't done anything wrong. This is all my fault," Jane told her.

"I could have done something, I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. You're always there for me and I can rely on you, but I let you down, I let you go through all of this by yourself."

"Don't you dare blame yourself Maura, you haven't done anything. I should be the one apologising. I just wanted you to be happy and I knew you would be better off without me, but I couldn't even do that right. And I can see it, in your eyes, how disappointed with me you are. I'm sorry that I'm so horrible and that you've had to put up with, and I'm sorry that I couldn't even kill myself properly."

"Jane, listen to me, please. I know that… well I don't exactly know from your point of view… but I do know that you can't see how amazing you are. And that's not your fault. None of this is your fault. But you are amazing and I love you. You're my best friend, the only real friend that I've ever had and you mean the world to me. I know that, right now, you might not accept that this is true, but I won't be better off without you. I'm not disappointed with you, I'm just worried, and that isn't your fault either so don't blame yourself for that, you can't help thinking that."

Jane looked unsure when Maura finished. She wasn't sure whether Maura was just saying that or whether she was mocking her. She was unsure why she was even here still. She didn't have to be, she wasn't being forced to sit there and be nice to her. She wasn't sure why Maua would want to be her friend. She was a let-down, she had tried to kill herself. No one needed a friend who was fucked up in the head. No one needed a friend who was like her.

And as if Maura was reading her mind, she spoke again.

"I'm not going anywhere Jane, I'm not going to leave you. I'll help you through whatever I can by doing whatever I can do. I don't want to lose you and I don't want you to think I don't care. Because I really do, more than I've ever cared about anyone Jane. You're not a let-down and you aren't a failure and you aren't a horrible friend, you just need a bit of help. And if I can do that, then that's great. And if I can't I'll stand right here by your side while other people help you. Because you deserve that Jane. You deserve to know how much you are cared about."

Maura felt overly emotional. Maybe she had almost lost her best friend and she was only now beginning to see how close it had been, or maybe because seeing Jane so upset over something had in turn made her upset as well, or maybe because she just really cared about Jane. She knew it was probably a mixture or all three.

Jane was looking at her, still unsure, but less so. She could tell Maura was serious about what she had said and although still hard for her to believe, was closer to accepting it.

"You're not going to leave?" Jane asked her.

"No, I'm not going anywhere Jane, we're lifelong best friends forever," Maura said smiling.

_A/N: Just wanted to point out that when I wrote 'fucked up in the head' that's not my opinion, I don't think that about people with mental health issues or anything like that. Also, this really didn't go how I planned and didn't exactly ended how I hoped, but I couldn't get it right even after re-writing it so I just left it like this, so I hope it's okay?_


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